Pearl Harbor, an exercise in ignorance?

So you are willing to dismiss a book without reading it? This tells me you have a closed mind, in which case you are in good company here. This website seems to attract dogged mediocrities loyally regurgitating the official line. In another context, they were the Good Germans who blindly followed orders and were incapable of independent thinking. I think of them as older fellows, cranky and isolated. They may have had useful careers selling stamps or other minor clerical work, but now it would take a blasting cap to get a new idea into their heads. In 1998 the U.S. Senate voted to exonerate the military and naval commanders of blame for the Pearl Harbor attack. That should suggest to you a considerable body of doubt exists as to the "facts" we know about it. I recommend that you read the book by the former RAF mechanic. If you do not care to make the effort, I'm afraid I don't have time for you, and you will fall under the same ban administered to certain pests who hang around this website waiting for an opportunity to discharge their venom.

 

Alas, poor Banjo . . . unable to recruit to his conspiracy theories . . . thwarted by the facts in his presentations of erroneous information, oft repeated tall tales, and fevered published imaginings of his fellow conspiracists . . . he resorts to school yard name calling . . . my goodness, how erudite. There, there, be calm, dear Banjo, it is so understandable, no offense is taken, this is simply the usual course of events when you’ve really nothing.

 

i honestly think this is a very sore subject to tackle, but yeah it could have been avoided, specially because they already had idea of what could happen,how Japan was going to attack them, and they just underestimated the whole action.

 

I think it was fairly easy to underestimate, let's face it, who in it's perfect mind would think that the Japanese would attack Pearl Harbor? Even though a lot of Americans died there, I think that at the end all was for a greater good because if it wasn't for that the US would never enter the war.

 

Who, besides the Japanese involved in the attack's planning and execution, of course, knew in advance that the Japanese were going to mass six carriers into one strike force, steam all the way to just north of Oahu, and launch an attack on naval and military targets on that island, with no declaration of war, on the morning 7 December 1941?

 

Good question Leonard. Apart from the Japanese only maybe their German or Italian allies, I am pretty sure no one else or this could have been prevented.

 

Slight correction, the information wasn't that Pearl Harbour itself would be attacked, but that the Japanese were planning to launch an attack on the US Fleet.
The place of the attack would have been obvious because there were not Japanese ships in the Atlantic, the Americans didn't think they would get close enough to Pearl Harbour without being detected, the US was lucky that most of their carriers were at sea at the time of the attack.

 

A long time ago I read a book called "Military Blunders" and I cannot lay my hands on it now for names, however it is stated in there that British Military Intelligence informed the Americans that the Japanese were planning an attack on a US Naval base, this was at first discounted, as the Americans had a non-hostility pact with the Japanese, under pressure and further reports from MI6 the Americans did take a little bit of notice (and here my memory of the book becomes hazy), the Americans either told their carriers that were part of the Pacific Fleet to get to sea, and or told them to stay at sea.
Some argue that had the Carriers been closer to Pearl Harbour they could have supplied the air cover that was needed.

 

The US had NO, repeat, NO, non-hostility pact with the Japanese.

No one has ever been able to present a credible shred of evidence that 'the British" told "the Americans" anything . . . if they had, then someone would know the names . . . and one can ask the same question about the British: "Who, besides the Japanese involved in the attack's planning and execution, of course, knew in advance that the Japanese were going to mass six carriers into one strike force, steam all the way to just north of Oahu, and launch an attack on naval and military targets on that island, with no declaration of war, on the morning 7 December 1941?"

And just as importantly, be they American, British, or, dare I say, Dutch, HOW did they know?

And no, there was no plan to save the carriers from the attack. There were but two carriers operating, both on missions assigned before the IJN strike force left Japan . . . suggest you look it up . . . especially the part about Enterprise being delayed on her return to Pearl Harbor; she would have been there on Sunday morning had not weather slowed down her escorting destroyers.

 

So the Japanese just decided on their own to attack the US? What were they thinking? The world was in total chaos at the time...

 

In a word "Yes" they wanted to control the Pacific Islands.

 

yes, they wanted islands in the Pacific, but, very long story short, only as a round out of what they already held as an outer defensive perimeter. What they REALLY wanted was the oil fields in Borneo and the Netherlands East Indies plus the Philippines to keep the US from potentially interfering with shipping from said oil fields to the home islands. And they knew they couldn't do that without fighting the British, too.

I'd have to do some digging, but I'm fairly certain the Italians were unaware of any Japanese moves. The Germans were vaguely aware that the Japanese were on the move, but not in specifics. The Japanese were also actively pushing for a re-write of the Tripartite Treaty changing article three, which read:

ARTICLE 3. Japan, Germany, and Italy agree to cooperate in their efforts on aforesaid lines. They further undertake to assist one another with all political, economic and military means if one of the Contracting Powers is attacked by a Power at present not involved in the European War or in the Japanese-Chinese conflict.​

To require political, economic and military assistance even if one of the signing powers were the attacking party instead of the attacked party. They did not get that revision agreed to by all in time for the start of the war in the Pacific (the Italians were not thrilled with the concept), but Hitler, in one of his less than brilliant moments, went along with the program and Germany declared war on the US with Italy following suit.

 

Okay I've actually found some references to a man named Popov, who was a double agent working for MI6 and the Abwer, he was dispatched to the USA in 1941, his job was to establish a new German network in the states, during his time, he was made aware through contact with other agents of the impending attack on PH, in fact he personally advised JEH of the impending attack, but due to his The FBI had been told by MI6 that Popov would appear in the States, so they knew he was acting for the British acting as a double agent, receiving information, and sending false information back to Germany. Popov revealed on TV much later, that he was given a questionnaire by MI6, on of the pages was entirely about the defences at Pearl Harbour, it was gathering that information that led him to discover of the planned Japanese attack.

Sources : J.C. Masterman's book The Double Cross System; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Du%C5%A1an_Popov

 

If you wish to believe that faerie tale, I wish you luck.

Despite your reference, if you bothered to check, you would find Masterman in his book (see pages 82-84) never, say again, never, credits Popov with providing Hoover with any specific warning of an attack on Pearl Harbor. Rather than repeat some sensationalist, and inaccurate, ramblings in Wiki, you may wish to apply some critical thinking in terms of where Popov (who was really just a talented con-man) had been and what he had been doing. Ask yourself some questions, the most importantly would be:

• Just who were these spies to whom he was communicating in the summer of 1941?
• Where were they and for whom were they working?
• What was their access to the Japanese Imperial Command’s most closely guarded, albeit at that point nascent, secrets?
• Just with whom with this information was Popov communicating and how was their information communicated to Popov?

Why did not Popov advise his British, or Abwehr for that matter, since the Germans neither had a clue of the Japanese plans, handlers what he had learned from his apparently world-wide private communications network?

You do realize, remembering that Popov claims he made his revelation to Hoover in August 1941, that the Japanese did not finalize their plans until October, do you not?

While it is true, the Abwehr did have some pretty specific wants for information on Pearl Harbor, the plain truth is that what they were asking for did not require a spy, merely someone who kept their eyes open. Are you aware that the Abwehr DID have an asset on Oahu, with whom they communicated and who was cooperating with the Japanese?

Should the information the Abwehr was seeking had alerted anyone to an impending attack? Maybe, maybe not; certainly no more than the hoopla the conspiracy industry makes over the supposed “bomb-plot” message, in which, by-the-by, the word “bomb” never once appears.

Masterman ruminates on the significance of the Abwehr’s request, but then you have to ask yourself, here’s a list ginned up by the intelligence service of a nation that would, certainly much less likely than the Japanese, never have its own military assets anywhere near Pearl Harbor. Here’s a list ginned up at least six months before the actual Japanese attack. Here’s a list that, while asking for some interesting information, never has a word alluding to an attack. Hindsight, even for Masterman writing in 1972, is 20-20. All Popov had was a list of information items, there was nothing to actually warn of an attack. If you think for one minute that various Abwehr assets in the US were not actively trying to ferret out the same sort of data on, oh, say, the Norfolk naval facilities, you’d probably be mistaken. The majority of the Abwehr assets in the US were already penetrated, hence how quickly they were rolled up once the US entered the war, not to mention their man on Oahu.

Any claim which Popov made as to “the Japanese are going to attack Pearl Harbor,” this tidbit gleaned from contacts with his fellow spies is post-war bovine excretia.

Further, picture yourself as someone in position of authority and NOT knowing what you know today. Presuming you can divorce yourself of that knowledge, would you have jumped up and down with “To arms! To arms! The Germans (remember, it was the Germans who were asking, not the Japanese) are going to attack Pearl Harbor!” What do you say when someone asks When? How? From where did you receive this revelation? And just what do you think the response will be when you answer “I don’t know, I don’t know, and from a British double-agent who can’t tell me where he got it.” Jeez, that’s almost as rich as “from the cook at the Peruvian embassy.”

The premise must answer, as my old colonel used to say, “does this pass the rationale test?” If you can think clearly at all, no, this one does not.

 

Pearl Harbor, as said in our Basic History class, ignited the World War II. Well, I was made to believe that this was an unexpected attack but when I read the thread my beliefs were somehow altered. If U.S military were actually warned about Japan's attack then this could have been prevented from happening and not causing many lives to vanish in an instant. I'm not a professional historian but then I think the U.S forces have underestimated Japan in those days that's why Pearl Harbor happened and is part of the World history today...if they were really warned.

 

WW2 had been in progress since 1939

 

The question I would ask is "What reason would Popov have to lie"?

I am fully aware that the Japanese were said to have an agent on Ohau, however this itself has not been proven, as the agent was supposed to be a (Japanese) Nurse, this could simply have been a smokescreen to hide the point that the US were warned on an impending attack.

On a different note, the US Intelligence in WW2, were it was later discovered contradictory to their name, and several blunders caused the extension of the war, the most famous of course is the capture of an Enigma Machine, discounted by the US as a "complicated typewriter" yet if they had spoken to the British, they could of saved thousands of lives in the battle for the Atlantic, but I digress.